A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded

As a journalist for Current TV, a former military officer, and a student of public policy I have been involved in the debate about the War on Terror from the frontlines in Afghanistan to the policy discussions of academia. In the spring of 2006 a battle was brewing between the Bush Administration and some influential members of Congress over the use coercive interrogation techniques. The conflict over what techniques were legally and morally permissible had been a subtext of the War on Terror for years, but for the most part the debate was occurring inside of the intelligence community, the human rights community, and in small legal circles. It was outside the purview of the American public.

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By April of 2006 the debate about coercive interrogation and its most controversial technique, water-boarding, had started to spill into the headlines. I was in graduate school at the time. As I watched the debate unfold, and listened to both pundits and policymakers give their opinion on whether this technique constituted torture, I was struck by the strangeness of the debate. All of these people were lobbying opinions about a subject they had never seen or witnessed, and that struck me as problematic in a healthy democracy. See, in full disclosure I had a unique knowledge of water-boarding. I had the technique performed on me during my time in the service as part of my SERE training (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape). I, like all Special Forces operatives who deploy overseas, was sent to a training camp where we learned to resist interrogation and survive captivity, god forbid that ever happened to us overseas. Ironically, one of the many techniques we learned during this training was to assert our rights as told under Article III of the Geneva Convention. So, because I was familiar with water-boarding, I was intrigued by this national conversation that was going on about this thing that few people really understood. But, like many Americans, the pre-occupations of everyday life, for me the pressure of mid-terms and exams, pushed the controversy to the back of my mind.

Then, in mid March I traveled to Cambodia for Spring Break. While there I visited the Tuol Sleng (also known as S-21) prison in Phnom Penh. The Tuol Sleng prison had been converted to a museum and memorial for the victims of the Cambodian Genocide under the Pol Pot regime. As I walked through the museum and saw the photographs of the victims of the genocide, I was shocked to see a picture of the Khmer Rouge Water-boarding a Cambodian villager. At that moment I saw a throughline between the debate we were having domestically and the picture I was standing in front of. I was spurred into action, and upon my return to the United States, I decided to have myself water-boarded, this time on national TV, as a public service, so that this controversial technique could be judged in the court of public opinion.

Kaj Larsen's water-boarding video airs Wednesday at 7pm PST/10PM EST in a one hour special report on Current TV.

Comments

[Norge]

Being part of a group training session to resist forms of torture is actually a none starter as it is not possible for any human which has been also documented numbers of times to resist extensive pain both phy. and physical for long periods of time and also such training is rather silly and superficial. It is actually just part of the military's macho tough guy training and does not actually have anything to do with the actual reality of pain in torture after capture.

There is no comparison to willingly partisipating in and being captured.

[notyourproblemYET]

this alone is enough to impeach Bush and Cheny and anyone who supported making waterboarding legal.Its scary and disturbing how many Americans accept it ,even defend it still.Imagine what else they are doing.We've all seen the pictures from Abu Graib....just the tip of the ice berg.

[warhogday]

Sounds like the authorities will be using the water boarding interrogation technique on Prince Harry and his friends concerning the shooting of 2 extremely rare birds of prey on his estate in England. Story can be found at http://bardosurfer.blogspot.com/

[prenhill]

Notice that water was not ejected from his mouth? Had he been "near drowning" it would have. This is a very effective simulation and only that, it is in no way torture.

Hey I have an idea! Let’s just behead our enemies on camera!

[Anie]

I keep hearing this is the only way to go with "SUSPECTS" -- in other words, people who may NOT even be guilty of anything or KNOW anything.

That includes people caught up in general sweeps of villages.

Way to make more enemies among the people.

It's the danger of that kind of war, and of course a war Bush/Chene­y/Rumstead thought would be a piece of cake. For them, maybe. Sending others is easy.

[kardwell]

Mr. Larsen's ability to last his flirt with waterboarding for 24 minutes was due only to the fact that he was in complete control of the situation and knew that his next stop wouldn't be the room next door where they'd attach live wires to his balls. Torture in any form is illegal, unethical, and ineffective. By sanctioning and employing these inhumane tactics, we've lost all moral standing as a nation.

[Purcy]

I think his own comments were as important as the video...he thought he was going to die. And, the laughter...a lot of people do that...it helps when one doesn't want to cry. I wanted to cry watching it...I wanted it to stop long before it did. Yes, it is torture, even to watch, much less endure.

[SeamusD]

I remember my 3 day Navy SERE school session in the San Diego foothills in 1972. Very humbling and sobering for someone on his way to South-east Asia for a year. Waterboarding IS torture, let me tell you, and as you have just witnessed. Never in my life did I expect to see an American president trying to justify something so egregiously and insultingly stupid as this. People who are so set on inflicting "advanced interrogation techniques" on their fellow humans should get an all-expense paid trip to the nearest SERE facility and be introduced personally to those techniques. I guarantee that they will have a completely different outlook on the issue after 3 days of SERE.

[factotem]

Because you chose to do this in a basement (!?), you lost all the value of its immediate impact. Now everyone has to make their way to your video. Why not a street corner?

Also, I'm anti-torture but this 'journalistic' set-up makes the subject a sensationalized joke. Congratulations, you've just made the most popular video that will be airing on Fox news for the next 2 years. That's how harmless you've made it seem.

Following the process with laughter...? Inane.

[AKJM]

Hats off to M Larson. From all I read and view the practice seems to be torture; but I'm ashamed to say I'm afraid to find out.

[scrzbill]

The Water Cure as it was known previously is against the law. The United States has previously prosecuted US officers for participation in the use of the cure. HBeachBum, if you for torture, then let's start with your wife or mother or father or sister. Let's make rape a legitimate form of war also. I think you are right about beheading too. Start with all those who are against torture and the occupation of Iraq. Cut off their heads. Damn pinkos.

[kaziny]

During World War Two, Japanese interrogators used water boarding while questioning captives. Interrogators who did this were tried for war crimes and sent to prison. Members of the United States government have approved water boarding and are therefore guilty of war crimes. Unfortunately, in our world, war criminals are only prosecuted if they lose the war. The more powerful country, as in Viet Nam, can literally get away with murder.
The Neocons in charge of our government have cleverly skirted joining the International Criminal Court by saying Americans shouldn't be judged by foreigners. Yeah, and we should have let the Nazis judge themselves at Nuremberg. The cornerstone of civilization is laws and their enforcement. By not joining the ICC, the U.S. government is declaring itself not bound by the rule of law for war crimes like some kind of rogue state.
The leaders of our nation who have sanctioned water boarding and their operatives who have carried this out are guilty of torture and war crimes. And if they are not prosecuted, we become nothing but the uncivilized animals we were before the rule of law.

[CATO90025]

The test is like a lightning bug to lightning. Sure the physical aspect is there but context is everything. Tantamount to simulating Russian Roulette with a kid's gun.

Did not like the circle jerk w/Dershie boy. If you know anything he is a torture advocate--his ticking-bomb exception.

I think we can all support a speaking-dershowitz corollary. That if some anti-capitalist will not give us,qua,the USA the needed info.--but may do so if we surgically trans-gender Herr Professor. And the Prez signs off--go for it.

[rextrek]

let's waterboard Cheney and Bush...they seem to think it's not torture....maybe they shouldbe the test subjects!

[Fightnmad]

HBeachbum wrote:
"This is bullshit. The waterboarding techniques we use do not involve the ingestion of water (either into the stomach or lungs) at all."

HB- You must be referring to the modified technique of placing Saran Wrap over the person's mouth and nose prior to water being poured over their face. And this is BETTER, how?

Any way you cut it, this is controlled suffocation, and drowning is a form of suffocation, is it not?

Your obvious outrage at the video, and you calling it BS, tells a helluva lot about what kind of human being you are-- barely one at all.

Ask yourself this question: Exactly which of your loved ones- be it relative, friend, or pet- would you like to see waterboarded? How, exactly, would you react?

This should place a different perspective on this form of torture, unless your inhumanity is all you have...